Madness Reloaded: So, I return to New York

It was a rubbish flight.

Compared to the last time when I flew direct to New York from Singapore, the flight this time was the absolute pits. Not just normal pits but pits with spikes and broken glass at the bottom. Since SQ did away the economy class flight to New York, we now have to fly via Frankfurt. Needless to say, the flight was a horror.

The plane was old, I have to transit for two hours in Germany, the food was obscenely unedible (eggs with spinach? Where is my stinky tofu?), and the ultimate is that my seat entertainment earphone does not really work. Never, ever sit in 61C. I have to ask the crew to give me some stickers to tape the earphone plug firmly into the socket because it kept dropping out. They couldn't move me because the plane was packed to the rafter. Of course, stickers couldn't keep the earphone in forever so I have to basically hold it manually to keep the sound level steady. Like I said, rubbish. The air steward was pretty embarrassed and gave me $75 dollars reimbursement but only for purchase of items on the same flight. I politely declined since I did not want to carry MORE GARBAGE on me.

The inflight movies are horrible. But I managed to watch three movies (I think). Two movies are so bad that I cannot remember off hand. Oh, wait! I remember. One of them is The Forbidden Kingdom and the other is the Happening. Forbidden Kingdom was expectedly, rubbish personalified. If movies are landscape, Forbidden Kingdom is like one of those desert scene you see in some Westerns. Barren, dry, with a drunk falling down dead in the distance. In other words, devoid of reason to live if you watch it. Yeah, I don't know why they are speaking English also.

So I arrived in NY, pretty glum. It did not help matter that the day I arrived in NY was the last day of the summer with the heat at its most intense. So hot and sticky, I checked into my hotel which would be my home for the next three months - Kimberly Hotel.

My room = no big deal. So moving on . . .

First meal was at a fast food like restaurant called Good Burger. The food here in NY is really expensive - every meal is like US$8.50 minimum! Throw in service tax and tip, it all totalled up to at least US$12.50. Every meal. Bloody insane.